


Never Have I Ever

by igrockspock



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, Mission Fic, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:26:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22538506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/igrockspock/pseuds/igrockspock
Summary: When a mission gone awry forces Rey and Rose to go undercover as girlfriends, Rose must decide whether to take a chance on revealing her true feelings.
Relationships: Rey/Rose Tico
Comments: 12
Kudos: 58
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Never Have I Ever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadaras](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadaras/gifts).



> Hi shadaras! I loved what you said in your letter about fake relationships with real feelings, and I really hope you enjoy this treat!

When General Organa requests two volunteers to buy fuel on Tatooine, Rey raises her hand first, and Rose stares longingly until Finn shoves her so hard she trips and yelps. Now she’s standing in front of the little semicircle of people who’d gathered for the mission briefing, and everyone’s staring, so she says, “I’ll go!” in what she hopes is a confident voice but might actually be a squeak.

Then Rey beams at her, and Rose’s whole body goes warm, and she forgets to be embarrassed about how awkwardly she volunteered or worried about her qualifications for the mission.

***

Her nonchalance lasts exactly ten minutes, which is how long it takes for three people to wink and ask when she plans to make a move on Rey.

Rose is not, as a rule, a violent person. She has been known to make exceptions, like when her so-called friends make everyone think she cares about her crush more than she cares about her mission. The second Finn comes into range, she whacks him with a spanner.

He yelps, half the command center stares, and General Organa says, “Excuse me, Commander Finn” in a special way that’s fifty percent disappointed grandma and fifty percent Darth Vader. 

“You got me in trouble with an authority figure!” Finn hisses. “That was low.”

“One, a pointed look is not _in trouble_ ,” Rose says, although the thought of the General looking at her that way makes her want to fall in a hole and die. “And two, you made me volunteer for a mission! With Rey!”

Finn yanks her into a corner of the command center. “You’ve had a crush on her for a year. This is your opportunity!”

“I don’t have _a crush_!” Rose snaps. Her feelings are much deeper than that. Calling it a crush is just demeaning. Her memory of what happened on Crait was fragmented -- red streaks across a battlefield, pain splitting her head, and blackness spreading across her vision. Then warmth, fingers of golden light licking away all the pain, asking her to come home.

She’d thought she was dying, but she opened her eyes to Rey’s wide grin and General Organa’s gentle smile.

“We healed you!” Rey exclaimed. “With the force!”

And Rose has been in love with Rey since that moment. Maybe she _should_ do something about it -- Paige would want her to -- but not on a mission. That would just be irresponsible.

***

The mission ought to be simple, so of course it’s not. Their ship drops out of hyperspace with a thud, a clang, and a burst of flames right outside Kafrene Trading Post.

“This would never have happened in the _Falcon_ ,” Rey huffs.

“Of course not,” Rose says, not even trying to bother faking sincerity. The General had decided that the _Falcon_ was too high profile, and too volatile to carry back thousands of tons of hyperdrive fuel. 

“Well, I suppose we’re stuck with what we have.” Rey swivels the pilot seat toward Rose. “What’s the plan, Commander?”

It takes Rose a minute to remember that _she’s_ the commander, a leader of the Resistance. General Organa had pinned the badge on her in a ceremony in front of the base, which was how Rose had learned that you could be incredibly proud and nauseated with fear at the same time. 

Rose fixes her eyes on Kafrene’s spinning silhouette in the distance. “We have to dock for repairs. If we wait for help, the Hutts will have sold the fuel to someone else by the time we get there.”

And anyway, the Resistance barely has ships or personnel to spare. Whatever the problem is, they have to solve it themselves. 

Even if the problem is a garrison of stormtroopers at the station. 

“Keep your hood up,” she murmurs to Rey. “We have scan-docs if we need them.”

The scan-docs are very convincing. Poe Dameron had made them, and Rose has no idea why he’s so good at so many shady things, but if he says a con will work, it usually does. Of course, the best forged docs in the galaxy will be useless if anybody recognizes Rey’s face from the wanted holos plastered across every world from here to the outer rim. On the bright side, half the beings on Kafrene are fugitives, so shadowy, cloaked figures blend in well.

There’s only one problem: she and Rey both grew up in desolate, broken planets in the armpit of the galaxy. The hum of the space dock and the gritty back corridors are familiar enough, but when the sprawl of the market appears suddenly before them, they both pull up short.

The casino at Canto Bight had had an order to it, even if it was an unfamiliar one. This is like nothing Rose has ever seen. Stalls covered with tattered cloth and shining scraps of metal stretch out as far as she can see. Tentacle-filled pots belch clouds of steam into the air while hawkers call out in dozens of languages that Rose has never heard before. Her hood falls off, and she’s too busy staring to care.

Rey stands beside her, equally overwhelmed and enthralled, and that’s probably why the stormtroopers notice them.

“Who are you? What’s your business here?”

Rose starts at the tinny voice. Two stormtroopers are standing in front of them, so she does the only thing she can think of: she clutches Rey’s hand and says, “This is my girlfriend. We’re on vacation.”

Rey nods enthusiastically. “Yes, we’re definitely girlfriends. We’re very in love, and we look nothing like criminals.”

Oh gods, they are so not qualified for this mission. Rey is good at cutting things in half with a laser sword, and Rose is good at small electronics repair. They should’ve asked the general for more training, or sent Poe instead. He’s dashing and vaguely unsavory, two things Rose is not.

The troopers hesitate, and then Rey says, “You’ve never seen a cuter couple.”

The trooper’s voice shoots up half an octave when he says, “You’re adorable!”

“Enjoy your vacation! You deserve it!” the second one says.

Rose doesn’t breathe easy till they round a corner and the troopers vanish from sight. Then they both collapse against a wall, giggling. That’s when Rose realizes Rey’s still holding her hand. Her grip is firm and warm and calloused, and okay, a little sweaty, but Rose isn’t judging. It’s so nice to feel warm skin pressed against her own. Rey looks down at their clasped hands and releases her grip suddenly, and Rose tells herself that she’s not disappointed.

“Next time, we could probably just do that force mind-control thing. You know, instead of all the fake girlfriend nonsense,” she forces herself to say.

Rey shakes her head. “I can’t control this many people.”

“Well then, we’ll have to stay undercover,” Rose says, hoping she doesn’t sound too eager. 

She wishes Paige were here to tell her not to get all tied up in knots over pretending to date a girl -- especially a girl like Rey. Rey’s out of her league, a Jedi to her mechanic, a brave warrior to Rose’s frightened mouse. What Rose feels doesn’t matter; it’s never going to happen.

“We need a number twelve hydrospanner and at least five meters of vaporator cable,” she says, forcing her mind back to a familiar task. Just because she _feels_ like a frightened mouse doesn’t mean she has to _act_ like one.

Rey nods enthusiastically and takes up Rose’s hand. “Let’s go shopping.”

***

Rose gets little jolts of electricity every time Rey’s knuckles accidentally brush against hers, though maybe that’s not Rose’s fault. Rumor has it Jedi can shoot electricity out of their fingers. They seem to bump up together a lot, always reaching for the same half-broken tool or jumble of wires at the market stall. Eventually Rose stops pretending it doesn’t excite her; they’re supposed to be girlfriends after all, and they’ve got to keep up their cover.

Their grease stained basket is exploding with nuts and bolts and hydrospanners, which hardly suits their cover story. As a commander, it’s Rose’s obligation to fix that, so she spends a foolish number of credits on a bouquet of star blossom lilies to cover up the hardware. They’re kind of garish, honestly, all rainbow colored with shining stems, but Rey’s face lights up when she sees them.

“These are for --” And then she stops, like she can’t believe someone bought her flowers. 

“You, yeah.” She clears her throat and wills herself not to go pink, even though it’s a lost cause. “I don’t really have any other girlfriends here, you know.” She pauses. “Or anywhere else.” 

It seems important to clarify, even though they’re pretending, even though this is just for the mission. 

“Here,” she says, and tucks the brightest blossom behind Rey’s ear. It’s the closest they’ve ever stood, and her heart is hammering in her ears. 

And oh gods, Rey is turning her face up, leaning in.

And then she whispers, “You’re a really good spy,”

Rose nods, short and sharp. “Anything for the Resistance.” She tucks the rest of the lillies into the top of the basket, hiding the pile of tools and wires that two girlfriends would definitely not buy on vacation.

***

“Checkpoint ahead,” Rose says. By the time they see it, it’s too late to escape without notice, and if there’s one thing she learned on Hays Minor, you don’t run from the stormtroopers. That just makes them chase.

The troopers are herding a crowd of shoppers onto a bench, and Rose follows obediently, pulling Rey along with her.

Rey looks over at her, suddenly anxious. “You’ll have to tell me if I’m doing this wrong.”

“Doing what wrong?” Rose asks.

Rey looks down at their clasped hands. “Dating,” she whispers. “I’ve never done it before.”

Rose almost says that she’s not an expert, but something makes her clamp down on the words. “So far you’re pretty good,” she says instead. She swallows. “Just a few adjustments, okay?” And then she slides closer to Rey on the bench, so close their hips and and thighs and knees press together.

Rey nods. “Right,” she says. “Stay close.”

“At all times,” Rose says solemnly, and Rey nods back, scooching a little closer. 

She doesn’t even feel guilty. It’s a matter of life and death.

***

“You don’t need to see anyone’s documents,” Rey tells the stormtrooper.

“The hell I don’t,” the stormtrooper snaps. 

Rose sucks in a breath. She hadn’t argued when Rey said she wanted to protect everyone at the checkpoint, but this isn’t going to be as easy as distracting two stray guards. This trooper’s armor is polished gleaming white, and the hilt of his blaster glints silver even in the station’s dull light. Maybe he’d joined the Order willingly, or he would have, even if he wasn’t taken as a child.

“You have no interest in anyone in this line,” Rey says, more firmly this time.

The trooper holds out his hand for their scandocs, and panic flutters in Rose’s chest. She can see it’s not working, and their cover’s going to be blown, and their first mission will fail -- 

_No._ She’s not going to think this way. 

“What she means is, you don’t need to see our scandocs _again_ ,” she says. She’s no Jedi, and she’s definitely not calm or cool or collected, but she’s damn well going to pretend to be.

Rey nods, taking up Rose’s thread. “You already scanned us. You’ve been through the whole line already.”

“I have?” The trooper pauses, his rigid stance suddenly a little slack.

Rose nods. “You’re a busy man. Working so hard for the Order.”

Rey squeezes her hand, and Rose feels the silent thank you.

Rey’s voice is honey sweet now. “You know your shift ended five minutes ago. You’re going back to your quarters. You _deserve_ time off.”

“I do!” the trooper exclaims, his voice filled with wonder. He waves a hand at the crowd gathered on the benches. “Move along. Move along.”

***

The whole way back to the dock, Rose feels a prickling on the back of her neck. Somebody in the line had noticed what happened, she’s sure of it. Maybe _several_ somebodies. She doesn’t breathe easy until they’re back on their ship, pulling up the gangway behind them.

But Rey is not okay. She’s leaning against the wall, breathing too hard, blinking fast like she might cry.

“Thank you,” she says, the words tumbling out with a little wobble that Rose has never heard before.

Rose shakes her head. “I’m pretty sure you’re the one who saved us back there. You know, Jedi mind trick and all.”

“ _No_.” Rey’s voice is emphatic. “He was stronger than the others, but I knew if I kept pressing hard enough, using more power, I could break him. There was this voice in my mind, this awful voice, telling me to do it. I almost listened. But then you stepped in and showed me something he actually wanted. Something I could nudge him toward without hurting him. If you hadn’t been there…”

Rose shrugs. She hadn’t done anything remarkable. “Everybody’s better on a team,” she says. “That’s why we work together.”

“You ‘re not --” Rey swallows. “ -- not afraid of me now? Because I almost…”

“ _No_ ,” Rose answers quickly. “Look, it’s a war,” she continues softly. “We all have dark moments. You don’t go out alone because you need people to remind you who you are. I can do that for you. I can _always_ do that.”

Very slowly, she extends her arms toward Rey. Rey’s a little touchy about her personal space, which makes sense -- she’d grown up surrounded by thieves, after all. Hugging her feels like a risky proposition, but after a moment’s hesitation, Rey falls into her waiting arms.

***

After dinner, they lay out their tools and catalogue their supplies. They’ve got enough to fix the engine, Rose reckons, so long as they don’t make any mistakes.

“We should sleep,” she says, pushing the mission to the back of her mind. Repairing light speed engines is dangerous, and tired people get hurt. 

She’s about to go back to her bunk when Rey stops her.

“What if they’re watching us?” she whispers, jerking her head toward the windows lining the corridor. Closing the covers had felt too suspicious.

Rose rolls her eyes, determined not to be a frightened mouse. “So I won’t flash a resistance logo in the sky.”

“Obviously.” Rey rolls her eyes right back, but then the flushes deep pink. “I mean, if we’re really girlfriends, we would sleep in the same bunk, right?”

 _Oh._ Rose tries to get her breathing under control before she answers. “That’s very logical,” she says, and her voice doesn’t wobble. Much. “I’m glad you thought of that.”

***

They stand on either side of the bunk, like climbing into it is some kind of dare. It’s not much bigger than a single, so there’s no way they can each keep to their own side, a fact which fills Rose with an equal mixture of longing and dread.

Finally, to break the silence, Rose says, “I usually watch vids of porg and loth-cats before bed.”

She waits for Rey to laugh, but she only nods solemnly and says, “That sounds like something girlfriends would do.” And then she settles into the bed, pulling the covers back for Rose.

Rose slides between the sheets, shoving the last of her dread into the back of her mind. Hopefully she won’t do something embarrassing like drool or talk in her sleep, but so what if she does? Hundreds of rebel soldiers are risking their lives tonight; a little bit of awkwardness is hardly a sacrifice.

When she pulls out her data screen, Rey settles against her shoulder and looks up at her questioningly. Rose nods, and in a moment of recklessness, she flings an arm around Rey’s shoulders, gathering her even closer. It’s been forever since Rose has done anything like this -- not since before the Order came and took away all the children. After that, she’d never felt right thinking about dumb things like crushes or girlfriends. Now, though, it seems okay to let her chin rest against the top of Rey’s head and pretend that everything is right in the galaxy.

***

Rose awakens with Rey’s head tucked under her chin. She’s mortified until she realizes Rey’s arm is wrapped around her waist, so at this point, it doesn’t really matter who had grabbed whom in the middle of the night; their sleeping selves had clearly been willing participants. Rey’s hair smells nice, not like any scent that Rose can place, and she catches herself breathing in deeper. When she does that, her breasts push up against Rey’s chest, which feels --

Rose cuts off the thought before she finishes it. _Don’t creep on your friends_ , she tells herself sternly. _Not ever, but especially not on a mission._

Of course, that’s the moment Rey picks to open her eyes. Rose leaps out of bed so fast her feet get tangled up in the sheets and she falls on the floor.

“Rise and shine!” she exclaims, stretching dramatically like she’d intended to hurl herself onto the deck all along. “Kaf and ration bars for breakfast, and let’s get started on repairs!”

She manages not to look Rey in the eye until they’re safely tucked into the maintenance hatch, tools in their hands and minds firmly on the job ahead.

Well, _Rey’s_ mind is on the job. Rose is still remembering Rey’s lithe body tucked against hers, which just makes her more determined to be calm and professional -- which she does by flinching away every time Rey brushes against her inside the narrow hatch.

“Are you mad at me?” Rey asks finally. Her face flushes pink, a fact that Rose definitely does not find attractive. “If I did something last night --”

“ _No_.” Rose squeezes her hand, just to prove she’s not terrified of physical contact. “I just...have a bad feeling about this,” she finishes, which is true. She can’t shake the feeling of eyes on the back of her neck. _Somebody_ had seen the Jedi mind trick, and whoever it was would want to find them.

Rey nods. “Me too.”

Rose’s stomach twists at that. If the Jedi has a bad feeling, it’s probably because something really bad is actually going to happen. She pushes herself further up the hatch, not even caring that her ass is practically in Rey’s face. They have to get out of here.

***

Dock control says they’re number forty-six in the takeoff queue.

“Do Jedi mind tricks work over the comm?” Rose asks, covering the speaker. 

Rey mouths a silent _no_. “Want to run for it?”

Rose shakes her head reluctantly. Rey might be the best pilot in the galaxy, but that doesn’t mean she can win a fight with a star destroyer, and who knows if their jury-rigged repairs will hold? They’ll have to wait the seventy-four agonizing minutes till their number’s up.

“I’ll get us a cup of tea,” Rose says, for lack of anything better to do. “And then we can play never have I ever.”

“What’s never have I ever?” Rey asks when Rose returns with two big mugs.

“It’s supposed to be a drinking game. I’ll say something I’ve never done, and if you’ve done it, you have to take a drink.” Rose shrugs. “The idea is that the loser gets really drunk, but I guess since we only have tea, the loser will just have to pee a lot.”

As games go, it sounds pretty lame, but it’ll pass the time and keep her from being weird around Rey -- or at least, she hopes it will.

“Your customs are baffling,” Rey says, but she smiles and adds, “Never have I ever had a girlfriend.”

 _Great._ She hadn’t expected Rey to go straight for her romantic past, although it was certainly in the spirit of the game.

She takes a drink gamely and adds, “It was forever ago.” They don’t even have to fake date anymore, not with their takeoff clearance right around the corner, but she still doesn’t want Rey to get the idea that she’s pining for some girl back on base.

“Your turn,” Rey says, nudging her with her toe.

Rose grins. “Never have I ever actually held a ship together with spit and bailing wire.”

Rey lifts her chin. “It was the only lubricant I had, and it worked alright. We didn’t die.” That’s apparently Rey’s only standard for a successful repair, although with a ship like a _Falcon_ , there’s probably no alternative. 

“Fine, fine,” Rose says. “Give me one.”

“Never have I ever had sex,” she says, quirking her eyebrow at Rose.

“Well, I _did_ have a girlfriend,” Rose mutters, taking an obligatory swallow. She decides not to add any supplemental information about how long it’s been since she went to bed with anyone. Long enough that just feeling someone close to her was enough to get her hot and bothered, apparently. And if Rey’s determined to talk about sex, well, two can play that game. “Never have I ever custom built my own vibrator,” she says.

It’s a lucky hit. Rey flushes so deep her face is almost purple. When she reaches for her tea cup, she winces, and Rose reaches out automatically to rub her shoulder. She’d never thought of a shoulder rub as anything sexy -- she’d done it for Paige loads of times -- but Rey makes this noise that’s halfway between a groan and a gasp. Rose freezes with her hand hovering over Rey’s neck, wondering if she’d done something wrong.

“Please don’t stop,” Rey says, and her voice comes out in a breathy, urgent way Rose has never heard before. 

Rey’s hair is spilling around her shoulders, still damp from the shower she’d taken after they finished with the engine, and Rose carefully slides it to the side. It feels impossibly silky under her fingers, which must be some kind of Jedi trick, because nobody in the Resistance has nice things like conditioner, and Rose really wants to slide her fingers through it. _Get it together,_ she tells herself sternly. She’s helping a friend, who happens to have a very sexy voice, but the key word is friend. Everything else is just pretend.

She kneads her fingers across the stiff muscles in Rey’s shoulder, and Rey tilts her head to the side, exposing the long, pale arch of her neck. Rose aches to touch her skin, and when the temptation is too much, she pushes her thumb slowly up Rey’s neck, all the way to her hairline. Rey shivers under her touch, and this time, Rose lets her fingers dip below the thin fabric of her tunic.

That’s when the intruder alert sounds.

***

Every Resistance ship has smuggling compartments, and Rose and Rey wedge themselves into one, steeling themselves for the clatter of dozens of boots on the gangway. When it’s just a pitter pat followed by nothing, Rose pushes up the edge of the cover and peeks out.

“Just one,” she whispers. Even in the dull light, his armor gleams. “The one from the checkpoint.”

“Why is he alone?” Rey whispers back. 

The answer comes to Rose quickly. The mind trick had worn off, but if he told anyone that he’d lost the galaxy’s most wanted fugitive, he’d be reprogrammed or worse. Catching them was the only way to redeem himself.

“Never mind, I’ve got a shot.” Rey raises her blaster to the opening, and Rose knocks it out of her hand before she can really think about what she’s doing.

“He could be _Finn_ ,” she says. She realizes a second too late that her voice is too loud.

That’s how they end up staring down the barrel of the biggest blaster rifle Rose has ever seen.

***

If Kylo Ren didn’t love to play with his prey, Rose and Rey would probably be dead right now. As it is, the bounty for live rebel soldiers is twice as big as the bounty for dead ones, so they still have a fighting chance.

Rose thought she’d be shaking when she climbed into the corridor, but her legs are surprisingly steady. This isn’t the first time she’d been taken captive, after all. At least this time, she’s on her own ship and not facing down Captain Phasma.

Still, she’s got to solve this fast. There are probably a hundred ways Rey could win this fight -- breaking the trooper’s will, choking him with her mind, possibly shooting electricity out of her fingers. Those are all the dark side, and Rose had promised to protect her from that.

“Speak and I shoot,” the trooper says, waving his blaster toward Rey. Rose doesn’t miss the faint wobble in his voice, and that gives her a little hope. 

“We’ll do what you say,” Rose says in her smallest, weakest voice. She raises her hands toward the ceiling, letting them shake a little. _I’ve got this,_ she tries to think at Rey, even though her only plan is pretending to be more afraid that she is.

Well, that and the wrench in her pocket. If she can get to that, she can do...something. Hopefully very impressive, but not lethal to herself or the stormtrooper who could be just like Finn.

She inches down the gangway, pretending that fear’s slowing her down. After she’d gotten promoted, she’d started doing hand-to-hand combat drills with Finn. It seemed like the kind of thing a commander in a rebel army should know. If somebody’s behind you with a gun, you can grab the barrel and force it upward, or get under it somehow. That’s what she has to figure out how to do.

The thought of attacking a stormtrooper makes her heart pound. If she does this wrong, Rey might get shot or she’ll have to use the dark side to save her, and then what kind of commander would she be?

 _No._ She’s not thinking like that. Everything she’d tried on this mission had worked so far, and this is going to work too. All she has to do is pretend to trip.

Which is easy, because she stormtrooper keeps poking her in the back with his blaster. She goes down right in front of the step on the gangway, pushing her hips back as she fake falls. The trooper behind her stumbles over the step, just like she’d planned, and she seizes the barrel of the blaster and points it toward the ceiling as fast as she can.

He fires -- of course -- and then all three of them fling themselves to the ground as the shot ricochets around the narrow corridor. _Don’t stop fighting_ , Rose tells herself. Her wrench is heavy in her hand, and she spins around and swings it at the trooper’s head. His body goes limp, which leaves only the problem of the ricocheting blaster bolt, which shows no sign of slowing down and will definitely kill them if they can’t get the hell out of here.

The bright green bolt stops suddenly, and Rey’s standing up, beaming at her.

“I stopped it!” she exclaims, staring at the blaster bolt hovering in front of her. Her smile fades. “And I have no idea what to do with it.”

Rose rushes toward the open junction box at the end of the gangway. The trooper must’ve shut down their forcefield when he came aboard -- which, really, was some nice electrical work, but she can appreciate that later. She pushes the wires back in place, and the forcefield flickers back to life, trapping the blaster bolt behind it.

Together, they pull the trooper out of the gangway, and Rose pulls off his helmet. Underneath, he’s young and sandy-haired, about the same age as her cousin Davin would be now. The Order had taken him when he was four, and Rose hopes that someone somewhere is showing him some mercy right now.

***

They’re underway to Tatooine, their stormtrooper safely sedated and locked away, when Rey yawns and declares it’s time for bed. Rose almost follows her into her bunk, but Rey looks at her questioningly, and she stops at the threshold. “Oh, right, I forgot. Mission’s done.” She forces an awkward chuckle. “Just a reflex, I guess.”

She turns away, back toward her own bunk.

“Rose --”

She spins around, trying to swallow the hope rising up in her chest.

“I had fun.”

“Me too. We should --” _Sleep together all the time and be girlfriends for real._ “Go on more missions together.”

Rey nods, and Rose forces herself to turn back around. She swears she can feel Rey watching her go, but that’s just wishful thinking. Without thinking about it, she closes her fingers around her necklace. She wishes for so many things. That the war was over and she had the right to think about herself. That there wasn’t grease under her fingernails and that she remembered to brush her hair. That she had some kind of magic superpowers that would make her equal to Rey, and most of all, that Paige was here to remind her that she’d meet the right girl someday.

Except Paige would never say that.

Paige would only ever tell her to be brave. To fight for what she wants and who she loves.

Rose spins around, and oh gods, Rey is really there, watching her go.

And she’s Rose Tico, a commander in the Resistance, a woman who’d successfully led them through an undercover mission, subdued their would-be captor, and repaired their light speed engine with not a whole lot more than spit and bailing wire. She can do this.

“I like you,” she says. “A lot. I have for a year, and I don’t want you to be my fake girlfriend. I want you to be my real girlfriend and sleep next to me in my bed that’s a little too small for two people, and watch porg vids at night and --”

She stops talking when Rey closes the distance between them in two quick strides. 

“Never have I ever kissed someone,” she whispers, and then she leans forward and brushes her lips across Rose’s. “But now I have.”


End file.
